Mud-lucious and Puddle Wonderful

I am becomming mildly obsessed with e.e. Cummings. Here are just some of my recent finds from him...


"The world is Mud-lucious and Puddle wonderful"


"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter"


"The earth laughs in flowers"



There is something very obviously metaphorical about what we come to appreciate during a rainy day. It has something to do with paradoxes and opposition. It's impossible to ignore a phyisical experience reminding us that there is something larger than a persons individual will. The rain can bring you down, but the magic comes in the paradox that sometimes we need to be brought down and learn to laugh when it happens, learn to appreciate the fact that it does. Thats when beauty and joy srpouts!


I used to hate it when i overheard people discussing the weather, i thought "How boring! They must not have much else to talk about" I understand better now, the weather is not boring, it's everything. Our attitude toward what we can't control is everything, our ability to appreciate it's magic is essential if we want to witness the flowers!

Make Life Beautiful

I don't spend enough time creating. I want to be more involved in adding life to life. I love thinking about the thought behind the products that people produce. The detail and time spent making the eclectic unique trinkets that can be collected over a lifetime. Things like a tiny wire mexican skeleton statue or knitted sea creature ornaments. I wonder if these things were preconcieved or if they just evolved. If their makers had a specific purpose for them or if art, the pure inspiration to create, was taken and auctioned off after the realization of their value.

I guess it doesn't really matter except that people keep doing it. It is so refreshing to have an idea and see it begin to take shape. We create to see the fruits of our labour, to witness our inner thoughts materialize and express themselves, to have something to inspire thought in others. Art is beautiful not because it looks great, but because it's original, it's personal, and it's new. It's inspiring because of the time and thought put in it, and because it creates hope in things that arn't typically seen.

Attitude Adjustment

I have a goal to write a new entry every week and I seem to be failing at it. For those of you who care, I'm sorry.

From now on I think the goal will be to write every Monday, this way I can create some constant in my hectic schedule...maybe for our hectic schedules.

I went to lunch today with a Best Friend. I Love her. Not just because we have a history of being friends or because we are in the same place but because she really is a great friend. I am lucky enough to have a lot of those. Really Great Friends.

For a good portion of my time in the past 5 months or so i've been increasingly negative and easily upset. Yuck. I hate being that person. The hard part was that I recognized it and still couldn't stop it.

I was stressing out over life...

What to do next?
Why can't things just work out?
How can I be different?
What do I want?

Blah Blah Blah.....

My friend pointed out to me that it's weird that I am being down on myself because usually I tended to be optimlistic and full of hope. I loved hearing that my normal self reseambled the person that I want to be, but bummed out that I wasn't being myself currently. But that is what I was struggling with...Hope. Life is really hard without it.

How could I, a normally optimistic person, be stripped of my Hope?

But more importantly, How do I get it back?

Hope is a belief that things are possible? So to restore my belief in my lifes possibilities i had to do a couple of things:

1)Take away the "Justs" and "Onlys"

I am just a student, just a housewife, just a girl. I am only surviving, the only one in my position, the only one.

Open up your eyes and be honest. Because we are never alone and we play many important roles. I am a Girl, I am a Student, I am a Sister, I am a Daughter, I am a Teacher, I am a Counselor, I am an Athlete, I am a Friend, I am. And we are never alone there are others who are experiencing similar joys and trials. We are not alone.

2)Be Present

Although I spend a lot of time planning for the future I needed to remind myself that there are important things that I can be doing here and now. Pay attention to the people around you and the place you live in and try to make it better for others, if you do you will magically make it better for yourself as well, and that reminds you that things are possible.

3) Say Thanks (obvious)

But really how often are we always looking over the hill and far away at things we want but don't have yet. Want what you have and you will be satisfied. If you arn't grateful go back to number 2. When we are grateful for what we have we remember that we hoped for it once and now we have it. We don't hope for things in vain.

4) Walk a mile in new shoes

It's amazing how when we start doing things we have never done before how quickly our perspective adjusts and changes. How quickly our attitude adjusts and changes toward those new shoes. Belief and hope are things we want but can't always see, meaning we don't know how to get there. We won't ever know until we increase our understanding by gaining new experiences.

I have a renewed sense of hope!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Friends

Speak Up!

I went to a really fun concert the other night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWIvfE01J0k

I'm not sure if it was the fact that the audience as well as the performers were geared up for Halloween or if the music was just fun and uplifting, but it brought me back and helped me realize something...

Say Something!

Be creative and risky about it.

Be weary though about how the whole of your life speaks to people.

Your life will say something about you. Might as well live life the way you want to be heard. I love music, like love love it!! It can pull me up from the deepest dumps or help motivate me to overcome myself. I have a fear of making it though, i've tried before. When i went to perform my song i couldn't get the words out because the audience made me nervous about what i thought was important to say.

Finding your voice is important. Living with enough purpose, passion, and courage to risk putting yourself out there is key. In order to find your voice you have to listen to yourself, and in listening to who you want to be and what you want to accomplish rarely will you be wrong. But we can't forget to speak up with our actions and be brave enough to let people in on the side of you that believes in something worthwhile.

Spiders, Crabs, Skin and Rivers

" Serendipity is the gift of life. It keeps us alive to constant growth and unending potential, if we develop a capacity to see what is found along the way and adapt creatively while keeping a keen sense of purpose" -John Lederach The Moral Imaginaion

" You don't reach Serendip by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings serendipitously" -John Barth The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor

Sometimes i feel lost and uninspired. But then i am reminded that it's all part of the path towards where i am going, and it's ok.

Whatcha Lookin At?

What are you looking at? Vs. What do You See?

Sometimes when people ask the first they are really screaming the second...

Doesn't everyone want to be seen?

Why does it matter what way we are seen if it's all the truth?

So why don't we want to be seen sometimes?

Why do we find ourselves starring?

My thoughts: We arn't always at our best. So sometimes dressing up is actually a way of hiding. So when people look, we think they judge, and we get defensive because we can't hide who we really are at the moment. So when we see people when they are not at their best, try not to stare. Try seeing past the facade at the person who would like to be better, and offer a hand.

B.B.W.

So i didn't exactly take this picture, which is obvious. It's a fable, but it has to do with perspective....so hear me out.

I feel like this a lot of my days, i feel like little red riding hood. I've got a job to do, and I'm determined to feed my granny in the woods, why she lives all the way out there i don't know but she's sick and i got the means to help her get better, and she needs someone to help. So I volunteer. I'm small and somewhat naive but I'm also prideful and don't want others telling me that i can't do something that i think i can, that i know someone can, but the Nay Sayer's think that I'm not good enough for the job and no one else is volunteering. And i love my Granny....so out the door i go!

You ever try to hold onto an ideal and the world keeps yelling at you to shut up. To all believers out there just SHUT UP! That's what this picture reminds me of. Our faith in the things we were told we could do if we just believe in them, that's what they told us when we were kids. They never told us about the times when we would be disappointed or let down and made fun of for believing, they did give it a name though,"The Big Bad Wolf" we just didn't know that the wolf could be us sometimes. Belief, Hope, Faith is the key component to our perspective and therefore success. When we doubt others and ourselves we cripple "the possible" and it becomes the lame "impossible". So why do we let that happen, why do we give up or let go of our faith? Because that scary unknown wolf lurks over us waiting in the woods to get us, but the rouse is that it gets closer every time we loosen our grip on our basketful of faith to peek to see if it is there. It's a self defeating mechanism coupled with the truth that misery loves company. We lose faith cause our expectations get higher and our memory of the miracles we've witnessed fades. Others who have given up on theirs readily give us excuses to give up on our own.

B.S. Big Bad Wolf! I'm calling your bluff. I'm holding on to some great crap in this basket of mine and i got sick people to visit. You may be working double time to get at me, but I've got a greater purpose than yours and mine involves faith.

I've felt the BBW riding my you know what for months now and i have been slowed but i won't let him take away my faith. Death grip! Miracles happen, dreams come true, and it's all worth believing in, but you have to have some faith to see it all work! It may be heavy to carry at times but it makes the trip worth while.

Filters

I need to work on being less filtered.

I always find people refreshing when they are less filtered. When unfiltered people speak what they have to say is usually shocking and ignorant or vulgar or irrelevant or idiotic, but to them, they are just being brutally honest. The purity of those moments where aristocratic politeness is blown over is something that usually lasts. We spend a lot of time trying to cover up those "flaws" we have. We want to seem a certain way, but covering up and hiding what we originally thought just enables us to live with certain uncertainties about ourselves. These unfiltered moments happen to everyone, and the people present in those moments are better for it. Being less filtered means being more honest. Being less filtered means others get to see you as you are and less as you want them to.

We were better at this when we were kids. As we grow older we are more afraid of learning lessons from our mistakes, so we hide our true feelings and don't say the things we think. I want to be more like my nephew who can yell the words "Grandma" and "Penis" in the same sentence in the middle of church.

I had the privilege of seeing someone accomplish a goal today. He has struggled with addiction for most of his adolescent life, he ran away from all his responsibilities, and didn't care much for what anyone expected from him. But then He hit a wall, a very high wall made up of the natural consequences that breaking the law and building addiction will build for a teenager, and decided to make some changes. He graduated today from a therapeutic program, received a certificate of achievement and said his goodbyes. Today his unfiltered tears told the truth of what others were hoping he was feeling. He was proud of himself for working hard at being better. He was relieved that he didn't have to spend the rest of his childhood with strangers. He was scared at the opportunity his earned freedom would provide for him. So, In front of all his delinquent peers he took off his tough guy filter and let them see the honest truth of what made him courageous....and he cried. Then he ended with saying "Brah, i've done some crazy Shit!" I love it! Not afraid to be himself even when expectations are high, maybe that's true humility.